


stay

by faikitty



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 09:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16930356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faikitty/pseuds/faikitty
Summary: Kurogane has been distant lately.





	stay

**Author's Note:**

> Written for whump bingo. Lara asked for Kurofai with "voice hitching as they speak," which is just Fai in every other fic I write for them. So Kurogane gets to be the victim this time instead. :)

Fai isn’t surprised when he wakes up alone.

He’s not happy about it, even if he _was_ expecting it. He rolls over without opening his eyes and goes to nuzzle in against Kurogane, but he’s met with empty sheets and a cold pillow that tells him that Kurogane has been gone for a while. The bed they share in Nihon is big. Without Kurogane by his side, it’s _too_ big.

Fai has known something was wrong with Kurogane for several days now. Kurogane has been more irritable lately; well, he’s _always_ irritable, but the annoyance Fai has always seen in Kurogane’s eyes whenever he pokes fun at him has begun to verge on genuine anger. Fai’s jokes have been met with silence or quiet, snapped words, nothing like the explosive, over-the-top rage that Fai loves coaxing out of him, and Kurogane has stopped returning with any barbs of his own.

Fai’s first thought was that _he_ had done something to upset Kurogane. Maybe Kurogane has finally grown tired of him and is planning to abandon him. Maybe either Fai’s teasing or depression have become too much to take at long last, and Kurogane has been trying to distance himself from Fai so that the final blow doesn’t hurt either of them too much. Even sitting in their bed with the pre-dawn light starting to filter through the window, hoping against hope that Kurogane will return soon even though he knows he _won’t_ , Fai feels a sinking, hollow feeling in his chest when he considers the possibility of Kurogane leaving him. Fai can’t think of anything he could have done to truly _anger_ Kurogane recently, but since Kurogane is usually at least a _little_ bit annoyed with him, Fai can’t be sure that he didn’t make some comment that finally pushed him past his limit.

Kurogane hasn’t really been touching him the past few days either. They’ve grown easy in their relationship, comfortable after years of being together, and Kurogane has taken to touching Fai casually, slinging an arm over his shoulder when Fai is cooking or gently setting his fingers on Fai’s waist as he slips past him. But lately, Kurogane… hasn’t been. Kurogane’s hands have stayed by his side or folded over his chest, and Fai has barely even been able to get Kurogane to _kiss_ him.

That’s the most upsetting part of all, really. Fai _likes_ kissing Kurogane.

Fai doesn’t _think_ it’s him, though. With Tomoyo, too, Kurogane has been withdrawn, distracted, taking longer to respond to her comments than he usually does. Tomoyo has eased up on him, Fai has noticed. She’s stopped teasing him and has started to treat him more carefully, all of which just worries Fai even _more_. He doesn’t know _why_ she’s doing that; maybe she knows what’s bothering him? He wants to ask, but he won’t. Whatever has happened, Kurogane will tell him when he’s ready.

That’s why, when Fai wakes up alone, he isn’t surprised. His heart drops a little when he’s finally forced to admit, after a half hour of waiting, Kurogane isn’t coming back to bed, but he isn’t _surprised_.

He _is_ surprised, though, when the day passes without him catching even a _glimpse_ of Kurogane. The castle is large, but Fai should still have seen Kurogane at least once. By the time the sun has started to think about setting, Fai has taken to wandering the halls, growing increasingly concerned. He thinks Tomoyo would have told him by now if something had happened to Kurogane today, but he can’t stop his mind from spiraling as he paces the corridors. Kurogane could have left, decided he wanted nothing to do with Fai anymore, nothing to do with _Tomoyo_ anymore either, gone off to make his own place in the world after having already proven that he can survive perfectly well _outside_ of the world of Nihon—or Kurogane could have gone off to train and been ambushed, could be lying dead outside the walls of the castle and none of them would even _know_ it—or Kurogane could—

Rounding the corner, Fai nearly bowls Tomoyo over.

He bumps into her hard, just barely managing to catch himself against the wall. He grabs Tomoyo’s arm to steady her as her covered feet slip on the wooden floor. “Sorry!” he says with a sheepish grin as he releases her once she has regained her balance.

“It’s alright, Fai-san.” Tomoyo looks _through_ him more than _at_ him, clearly as lost in her own thoughts as Fai, but the smile she gives him is as gentle and kind as ever.

“I don’t suppose you know where Kuro-tan is,” Fai muses. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

Tomoyo’s smile fades. She looks _sad_. “He didn’t tell you?” she asks, and Fai tilts his head slightly in confusion. “No, I don’t suppose he would have…”

“What didn’t he tell me?” Fai asks with a spike of honest fear. “Is he okay?”

“Kurogane would say he is. I’m not certain… that I agree,” Tomoyo confesses. “This time of year is more difficult for him than he is willing to admit, even to himself. I fear I have done all I can for him, and it has never been enough.” She pauses, gazing at Fai in consideration. “You, though…”

“What’s going on?”

Tomoyo sighs and closes her eyes. “It’s the anniversary.”

“Anniversary?” Fai repeats. It’s a word he knows, but not a word that makes _sense_ to him right now. Tomoyo reopens her eyes and gazes expectantly at him, waiting patiently.

It hits him like a ton of bricks, and everything falls into place. Kurogane’s silence, his distance, Tomoyo’s gentleness with him. It all makes sense.

“His parents.”

“Yes.”

Fai drags a hand down his face in frustration. This whole time, he has been wondering what _he_ did wrong, selfishly wishing Kurogane would go back to treating him the way he usually did. It was never _about_ him. “…where is he?”

* * *

 

They chose a pretty spot to bury Kurogane’s parents, Fai thinks as he makes his way up the final stretch of the hill, his eyes on Kurogane’s distant back. He has to walk through a small but dense patch of woods to reach the grave, but the hill itself is tall and open, covered with smooth grass and small flowers. It overlooks scattered villages and small patches of forest, a lake shimmering in the distance in the golden hour light, but it’s far enough away from any houses that it affords absolute privacy.

“Hey,” Fai greets quietly as draws near. Kurogane sits facing the grave, legs crossed, and he glances over his shoulder at Fai. He doesn’t seem surprised to see Fai in the slightest; he doesn’t seem annoyed to see him either, though. “Mind if I sit?” Kurogane gives a wordless grunt and turns back to gaze again at the post that marks the gravesite. Fai takes the sound as permission and settles in behind him, leaning his back against Kurogane’s and closing his eyes.

Grief isn’t meant for public consumption, even when it’s had years to turn from a raw wound to a scar. Fai isn’t here to ask Kurogane to reopen his wounds and cry on his shoulder (as if Kurogane even would). He’s here because he needs to be.

Kurogane leans back too, not much but a little, just enough to be an acknowledgement of Fai’s presence and his touch. “How’d you know where I was?” he asks quietly.

“Princess Tomoyo told me.”

Fai feels Kurogane sigh against him. “Of course she did.”

“Sorry,” Fai murmurs. He wonders faintly if Tomoyo was wrong, if maybe his presence here is unwanted and invasive. “I can leave if you want me to.”

“Nah,” Kurogane says flatly. “Stay.”

Kurogane would deny it being a request, but Fai hears the hidden meaning behind the word. Tomoyo was right after all.

He stays.

He wants to ask what happened. Kurogane has never told him _how_ his parents died, only that his mother was murdered by Fei Wang Reed. If Fai were to go based purely on how Kurogane speaks of their passing, on how Kurogane left the room in the library after he and Syaoran spoke with the faintest of _smiles_ on his face, Fai would think it had been nothing more than a tragic accident and that Kurogane barely remembered or cared about them. Yet the look on Syaoran’s face when he finally let go of the book that let him experience firsthand Kurogane’s past, the pained twist of his mouth and the empathetic grief that was so strong he sounded like he was choking it tells Fai otherwise. The tears took several minutes to stop flowing even after Syaoran passed out. Whatever happened to them, it was _bad_.

There’s Kurogane, too. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t get upset, doesn’t act like he cares at all. But Fai sees his pain now in the subtle shifts in his personality and habits over the past few days. No one wakes up before dawn and spends the entire day sitting at their parents’ graves if they don’t care. Fai is sorry he didn’t recognize Kurogane’s grief for what it was sooner.

“Did Tomoyo tell you?” Kurogane asks as if he can read Fai’s mind. Fai opens his eyes as Kurogane interrupts his silent musings. “How they died?”

“No,” Fai says softly. “She never offered, and I never asked.”

Kurogane nods his approval, Fai’s refusal to pry finally allowing him to be let in. “My mother was stabbed. I guess you know that, though. She was a priestess, just like Tomoyo, responsible for keeping up the wards.” Something about the even-toned, almost nonchalant way Kurogane speaks about his parents’ deaths makes a knife twist painfully in Fai’s chest. “Nihon is dangerous. There are monster outside the wards. When my mother died, the wards fell.”

Fai doesn’t need Kurogane to tell him what happened next. If this world is so dangerous to need priestesses to protect its people, then… “It was Fei Wang Reed,” Fai says before his brain can override his mouth.

“Yeah. I didn’t know that back then. All I saw was an arm and a sword coming out of a portal. Turned out to be that bastard that caused your brother to die and scattered the princess’s memories—putting all of this in motion, I guess, same as he did with you.”

Fai misses the last part; he isn’t listening anymore.

Kurogane _saw_ his mother die.

He watched her be _killed_ in front of him, just like Fai did with his brother. Kurogane watched her get stabbed, watched as she died, just like how Fai watched his twin die, watched him plummet from the sky, held his shattered body as he screamed. Fai bites down hard on his lower lip against the rush of memories that tighten his throat.

“She died fast though,” Kurogane continues calmly as if he were commenting on the weather. “Not sure if my father did or not. We never found his body.”

Fai blinks, hope flooding his veins so quickly it makes him dizzy. “Then maybe he—”

“He’s dead,” Kurogane interrupts firmly, dashing Fai’s hopes in one swift blow. “I saw his arm in the mouth of one of the monsters, still holding Ginryû. He never would have let that sword out of his sight, no matter what. If Ginryû was in the monster’s mouth, my father was in its stomach.”

Fai can’t help but flinch at Kurogane’s bluntness. “If everyone was killed by the monsters, then how did _you_ …?”

Kurogane tilts his head slightly; it bumps against the back of Fai’s. He lowers his hands and shifts them so that he can lean back with his arms locked, and Fai knows he’s looking up at the sky above them that is beginning to darken. “I don’t really know,” he admits. “I don’t remember it. I just know what Tomoyo has told me. That they found me surrounded by the corpses of monsters with Ginryû in one hand and my mother’s body in the other. I guess I killed them all in a blind rage or something. Tomoyo found me there and saved me. The only thing I actually remember is waking up in the castle.”

The knife in Fai’s chest is driven in deeper.

Fai drops a hand to his side and sets it on top of Kurogane’s. Kurogane doesn’t fight it; he lifts his hand and allows Fai to slip his beneath it, palm up, curling their fingers together, Kurogane’s loose and Fai’s clinging tightly. “I’m so sorry,” Fai murmurs.

Kurogane shrugs against him. “Sorry doesn’t change anything,” he says. “Regretting their deaths won’t bring them back. You know that as well as anyone.”

Fai does know. He’s spent his entire life being crushed beneath the weight of his guilt and regrets, trying to find _some_ way to bring his brother back. Even now, it eats at him: his inability to save his brother, his inability to save Ashura, his inability to save _anyone_. Even when he’s happy, it’s still there on the edges of his mind, trying to consume him entirely again.

He doesn’t let it anymore. Kurogane silences that monster for him and stops it from eating him alive.

Kurogane has never allowed himself to fall prey to it to begin with, not even now, not even while he sits in front of his parents’ grave and tells Fai stories of his past. Kurogane has no regrets; at least, he claims he doesn’t, and Fai _wants_ to believe him. He wants to believe that nothing could ever hurt Kurogane, because he knows what grief feels like when it’s so raw that it cuts his teeth and burns his lips. Fai doesn’t want to believe that Kurogane could ever feel that. He wants to believe Kurogane is immune to pain.

He’s not sure he does.

“This is your mother’s grave then?” Fai asks softly, and he feels Kurogane nod.

“I thought they were both buried here for a long time. We had no body to bury for my father, but we had Ginryû. Some part of his soul was in that sword. I wanted it to be buried in his stead, and I thought Tomoyo had, but…” Kurogane sighs. “She didn’t. It’s weird knowing he’s not here anymore.”

Fai blinks. “What do you mean he’s not here?” he asks. He feels Kurogane’s head turn and knows he’s looking over his shoulder in confusion.

“What?”

“Part of his soul is with Ginryû, so he _is_ here,” Fai says slowly. “He has been for a long time. If your father is with Ginryû, then… he’s with you.”

Kurogane’s hand twitches in Fai’s grasp. His grip goes tight on Fai’s fingers before he can slowly, forcibly relax it. Even then, it stays tighter than it was before, and Fai matches it in turn. “Yeah,” Kurogane says quietly, and for the first time something colors his voice. It doesn’t paint it vibrant with stark emotion but tints it just enough for Fai to hear the shade of it. “I guess you’re right.”

Fai lets the words float in the air for a while. He feels Kurogane breathing steadily against his back, but it’s _too_ steady, inhales and exhales too evenly paced to be natural. It’s the breathing of someone trained in battle, someone who can control everything inside of them with breath alone, and Fai has only seen Kurogane do it during fights or when injured. But he feels it now, rhythmic against him as Kurogane breathes in the meaning of Fai’s words.

Fai can feel Kurogane steel himself again like his breath is heating the forge of his emotion. He doesn’t speak; he doesn’t know what he would say. It’s easier to let Kurogane stay afloat in his own thoughts. If it were Fai, he would be drowning in them, but Kurogane isn’t Fai and he doesn’t need to be thrown a lifesaver.

“They sound like good people,” Fai murmurs after awhile. The sky has begun to darken; the brilliance of the sunset casts red and pink and purple onto the clouds.

“They were,” Kurogane says quietly.

“I would have liked to have met them.”

“Yeah.”

Fai doesn’t try to get more than one or two word answers from Kurogane. It’s easy enough to keep a tone smooth and free from pain when speaking in short bursts, and Kurogane has never forced _him_ to talk either, not unless he _had_ to, not unless Fai’s secrets were going to harm someone else. If it was just Fai, then Kurogane allowed him to keep his secrets and his sadness to himself.

Fai will do the same for him.

He leans back and closes his eyes, squeezing Kurogane’s hand. “They would be proud of you, you know,” he says softly.

Kurogane snorts a quiet laugh. “That’s what everyone says,” he returns with no feeling.

“It’s true. They would be,” Fai insists. “ _I’m_ proud of you. So is Princess Tomoyo. You aren’t the same man I met back at the witch’s. You’re stronger, somehow.” Kurogane remains silent, even his breathing stilling for the smallest of moments, but Fai can hear him swallow hard. “Princess Tomoyo has known you since your parents died. She’s seen you grow. She wouldn’t even have allowed you back into Nihon if you hadn’t changed.” Fai tilts his head back to rest against Kurogane’s back. “Your parents would be proud of you, Kurogane.”

“Yeah,” Kurogane manages before his too-steady breathing finally falters, a near imperceptible shudder going through him before settling as a strain in his throat. When he speaks again, his voice hitches on the word, the break impossibly loud for all that it is quiet. “Thanks.”

Fai smiles faintly. He doesn’t know _why_ ; he hates this, really, can’t stand seeing—or hearing—Kurogane in pain. But something in that briefest of glimpses into Kurogane’s grief after years of stoicism makes the smile come to him unbidden. Kurogane’s hand is warm in his, holding tight, as if for once Fai is the one keeping _him_ above water.

Kurogane holds Fai’s hand; he gazes at the grave marker in front of him, reaching out to touch it lightly with his other hand. It’s beginning to grow colder, the sun finally dipping below the horizon and out of sight, but Kurogane makes no effort to leave yet, so Fai doesn’t either. He waits, eyes closed and mind quiet, for Kurogane to make his peace.

Fai stays. He always will.

**Author's Note:**

> CAT DREW US FANART! Please check out her wonderful fan comic here! https://twitter.com/catiacchi/status/1116842565968568321?s=21


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